


made of marble

by adreadfulidea



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fake Marriage, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 06:18:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6789784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adreadfulidea/pseuds/adreadfulidea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The former Governor's mansion was exactly what Natasha expected it to be. Big windows, white walls and ‘clean’ colors - beige, gray, cream; more neutral than Switzerland during wartime.  Nouveau-Riche with the occasional antique thrown in for a status statement. Men like Alan Wallander never did have much imagination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	made of marble

 

 

 

 

The former Governor's mansion was exactly what Natasha expected it to be. Big windows, white walls and ‘clean’ colors - beige, gray, cream; more neutral than Switzerland during wartime. Nouveau-Riche with the occasional antique thrown in for a status statement. Men like Alan Wallander never did have much imagination.

She ran her finger along the square base of an art deco clock which was beautiful but also not the Cartier it was made out to be. Natasha wondered if Wallander knew it wasn’t the genuine article. The decor had most likely been put together by an interior designer.

Her dress was dusty purple, heavily beaded around the hips and the bodice. The modest neckline was offset by how high the slit in the skirt went. It was great for standing around looking amazing. Not so great for sitting - she hoped they could ditch the party before the dinner portion of the evening.

Natasha found Nick talking to Wallander himself. She sashayed over to interrupt.

Nick put his hand on the small of her back when she kissed his cheek in greeting. “There you are,” she said. “I thought I was going to have to look for you outside.”

There were people in the garden; it was decorated with bright paper lanterns and waiters circulated through the crowd, hands full of canapes and champagne. The smell of night-blooming jasmine drifted in through the patio doors. But Wallander held court inside the house and Nick had wanted to get a read on him.

“Have you met my wife?” Nick asked.

Wallander smiled at her like she was the prettiest bauble in the place. “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Pamela Ibis,” Natasha said, and held out one hand. She kept the other on Nick’s arm.

He kissed her knuckles. She could practically feel Nick psychically rolling his eyes and had to work to keep a laugh down.

“Charmed,” Wallander said. He was good-looking in a blurry, indistinct kind of way. An ad campaign of a man. A local boy who came from money and worked for Roxxon to make himself some more. He’d finished out his term as Governor of Virginia but declined to run for re-election; everyone thought he was heading for Washington. Instead he seemed to enter a kind of semi-retirement. Pity he had used his old Roxxon contacts to create chemical weapons for A.I.M on the side. He might have given himself some time off first.

He was also trying to look down Natasha’s dress.

Another time she could have used that. But tonight they were playing the happy couple, so she flashed her blandest smile and took Nick’s hand. “Sorry to steal him from you, but he promised me a walk through the flowers.”

“Please enjoy yourself,” said Wallander. “That’s what it’s there for.” Natasha thought his obsequiousness had more to do with Nick’s cover as an oil baron - and potential donor for Wallander’s projects - than her boobs or anything else.

(She’d tried to get him to wear a cowboy hat but he wouldn’t do it. Not the boots, either. “I left heels behind in the seventies,” he said. “And we are not going back for them.”)

They did cut through the garden, but only to loop back around to the service entrance of the house and sneak back in. “Tell me,” said Natasha, as they walked single file up the stairs, “is anything about this shindig real? Is he actually helping - what was it, again?”

“School for the blind,” said Nick. He passed her back a small flashlight; the upper level of the house was dark and they couldn’t afford to draw any attention by turning on a light.

“School for the blind,” said Natasha. “What’s it a cover for?”

“Nothing,” said Nick. “But those kids aren’t gonna see half the money this thing brought in. Doesn’t even have anything to do with A.I.M. Just plain, ordinary human greed.”

“Ew,” said Natasha, flat and humorous. But the more she thought about it the more she was bothered. There was something about bottom feeders like Wallander that got under her skin. And people who went after kids; well, she didn’t have to do much self examination to determine why that made her want to shove a taser disk up his nose. She never took her life for granted but there were certain things that were easier in the old days, when she could -

They stopped at the top of the stairs. Nick looked at her. “What’s on your mind, Agent Romanoff?”

She flicked the flashlight on and held it under her chin. “Want to hear a scary story?”

He couldn’t quite help smiling, so he turned and kept going. “Next time I’m taking Barton with me.”

“Clint can’t do fancy. He makes his clothes look wrinkled five minutes after he puts them on.”

Wallander and company had been thoroughly bugged. Their offices, their cars, their houses, their secret apartments for their mistresses in the city. S.H.I.E.L.D still didn’t know where the lab was. That meant a secret meeting place, which could be anywhere - but Wallander liked to keep his business close to home. So here they were.

Nick and Natasha each covered half of the upper floor of the house. They met up again in the middle hallway, next to the bathroom.

“I couldn’t find anything,” said Natasha. “Except a fairly large quantity of cocaine in one of the guest bedrooms. You?”

“Think I got something,” said Nick. “Guess where.”

Natasha groaned. “Not the library.”

“Where else?”

“Did he even _try_ to be original?”

There was a small corner library looking out over the garden. It was messy and personal in a way that the big, well-appointed library downstairs wasn’t. Fewer matching sets of Shakespeare or Hemingway, more dog-eared paperbacks. There was a decent layer of dust on the windowsills, too - unlike the rest of the spotless house. The maids weren’t being allowed in to clean.

They made sure the drapes were closed and that no one could see them from outside. Nick walked over to a tall lamp by one of the windows. It was metal and ornate with several shades shaped like flowers. There was no cord.

“Bingo,” he said, feeling for something behind one of the shades. A bookshelf to the left swung open.

“Be bold, but not too bold,” said Natasha. “I’m amazed there isn’t a key with a spot of blood on it.”

“Can’t blame the man for liking the classics.”

Natasha realized their mistake immediately upon stepping into the newly revealed room. It was created for functionality only, a no-frills endeavor with a plain desk and an expensive computer system. There were weren’t any pictures or ornaments to soften the stark white of the walls. Except for one mirror, round as a bubble and completely out of place.

Camera. Had to be.

Nick paused behind her; she knew he must have come to the same conclusion. “Honey,” she said, giggling. “I don’t think this is the bathroom.”

Natasha was wearing what appeared to be a diamond tennis bracelet. It actually concealed a sophisticated listening device; all she had to do was drop it on the carpet and the technology would activate. The bugs - each the size of a grain of wheat - possessed a limited mobility and artificial intelligence. They planted themselves.

She needed an excuse to misplace her jewelry. And they had the camera to contend with. A continuous digital feed was the most likely scenario, so they were going to be recorded no matter what.

“You still need it?” Nick asked. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her back against him. “Or do you need something else?”

Natasha closed her eyes. She could always count on Nick to catch on.

Besides, it had been a while.

“There’s a desk,” she said. When she spoke it was light, sugary. “Feel like fooling around?”

He kissed the side of her neck. “Lay down.”

Natasha bent over the desk. She had a bizarre urge to face the camera. To put create a spectacle, like she was delivering an insult to Wallander that he would never understand and which was all the more satisfying for it. Since she was not actually Steve Rogers, human middle finger, she glanced back over her shoulder at Nick. “Remember when we used to do this at your building in Houston?”

“Such a stereotype,” Nick murmured, pressing his hips against her backside. “Old man fucking his secretary.”

Natasha grinned. Of course Pamela Ibis had been her husband’s secretary. “Totally old,” she agreed. “Are you going to stand there all night or what? There are condoms in my purse.”

There was a place that Natasha went in her head during scenes like this. It made everything easier, distinct from herself. Just a trophy wife with her ass in the air, begging to get fucked. She could feel herself sliding away until Nick brought her back by carefully unzipping her dress.

Which wasn’t necessary; he could have lifted up her skirt and got down to business. She _was_ ready. Instead he kissed down the knobs of her spine, making her sigh. It relaxed her. And Nick knew what she liked.

By the time he got to the small of her back she was getting wet. She let him tug her underwear down and spread her legs.

“Now,” she said, in her own voice.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Warm and amused. He curled over her as he pushed in, a comforting weight along her back. “You with me, Romanoff?” he asked, close enough to her ear not to be overheard.

“Hell yeah,” she said, and rocked her hips. Her fingers gripped the edge of the desk.

He fucked her up onto her toes, her heels leaving the ground and her knees knocking against the wood. Slow and steady and deep. Natasha swallowed down a whine before she gave up all pretense of pretending. She was slick and open and _aching_ \- she felt good; she wanted to enjoy herself. Screw staying in character. The camera - and whoever was behind it - would never know the difference.

“Little harder,” she grunted. “Just - oh, right there. _There_.”

He lifted her hips up off the desk. Better angle. _Excellent_ angle.

She let herself go, rolled with it. Stopped talking completely; her encouragement came in the form of moaning through gritted teeth. Not showy porno noises but the real kind, the unfettered kind. A bit embarrassing, a bit -

\- crude, blunted; uh uh _uh_ from inside her chest. When he started rubbing her clit in teasing circles she couldn’t say his name, so she panted into the crook of her arm instead. She wondered what their unseen friend was picking up. Only visual? Black and white, pixelated security footage? Or was there audio as well, a sharp picture that could cut through the low light -

“Quit thinking,” said Nick. “I can _feel_ you -”

The next thrust was perfect, incandescent. She squealed wordlessly and then abruptly got her vocabulary back. “Fuck,” she said, “oh, fuck _you_ -”

His low, pleased laughter rumbled through her when she came. When he came, too, and collapsed against her.

She didn’t forget to snap open the clasp of her bracelet and allow it to slide from her wrist. Let it never be said that Natasha Romanoff wasn’t a professional.

 

Her shoes came off as soon as she got onto the car. “I hate stilettos,’ she groused, throwing them into the back seat. “They were invented by a man.” She put her feet up on the dash and settled back into the seat. The lights in the garden weren’t visible from the drive, but she could hear laughter and music. Now that everything was said and done she was drifting, an inevitable post-adrenaline crash.

Nick didn’t say anything at first, not until they pulled out onto the road. A few big houses flicked past, rows of poplar trees. “You did good tonight,” he said. “But you always do. Reminded me of the first time we met.”

A party at the Czech embassy, in the winter of 2007. She had been tracking a target - not him. But he was Nick Fury, and she’d wanted to see how close she could get. So she walked up and introduced herself. “My name is Nadine Roman,” she had said. And one look at him told her that he didn’t believe her for a second.

“When you appeared before my eyes,” she quoted, not in english. “Like ghost, like fleeting apparition. Like genius of the purest grace.”

He let his hand fall gently over her wrist. “Pushkin,” he said, surprising her. His fingertips traced the life line on her palm.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The poem Natasha quotes is Alexander Pushkin's "To ***". I've spelled her last name 'Romanoff' because that's how they seem to do it in the MCU.


End file.
